Norman Shelley

Not as a business matter.

No, what was wanted was a specimen of your handwriting.

There was no other way of persuading you to give one.

Keep the one on Earth for me.

Well, let us leave that point for the moment, except to add the obvious conclusion that someone wanted to imitate your style of writing.

So now we come to the second point.

This should throw some light on the first point, and vice versa.

I hope to heaven it does.

The second point, my poor Watson, is Pinner's request to Mr. Pycroft not to resign his place at Mawson and Williams.

If Mr. Pycroft didn't send in any resignations,

The manager of Morton's would be still expecting him to turn up to start work on a Monday morning.

You mean, Holmes, that someone was going to turn up in Mr. Pichock's space at Morton's?

Pretending to be him?

Capital, my dear Morton.

A glimmering of luck.

Yes, of course.

An imposter was to be planted into Morton's under the guise of Pichock here.

Just in case anyone should notice a discrepancy between his handwriting and that in which Peikoff did the price of vacancy, steps were taken to acquit this pretender with a copy of Peikoff's script to study.

Ah, yes.

But I don't understand, Mr. Holmes.